Lumifer comments on Superintelligence 7: Decisive strategic advantage - Less Wrong

7 Post author: KatjaGrace 28 October 2014 01:01AM

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Comment author: Lumifer 28 October 2014 04:33:25PM 4 points [-]

Alternate history is not falsifiable, of course, but that scenario doesn't look all that likely to me. Russia successfully recovered from losing a very large chunk of its territory, a great deal of its army, and most of its manufacturing capacity to Germans in 1941-1942. Losing a few cities (even assuming the bombers could get through -- there were no ICBMs and Russia in 1945 had a pretty good air force and AA capabilities) would not cripple Russia. I would guess that it would just incentivize it to roll over the remainder of Europe. It's not like Stalin ever cared about casualties.

Comment author: Larks 01 December 2014 02:53:20AM 1 point [-]

Good point, but I think Bostrom's point about risk aversion does much to ameliorate it. If the US had had a 50% chance of securing global hegemonicy, and a 50% chance of destruction from such a move, it probably would not have done it. A non-risk-averse, non-deontological AI, on the other hands, with its eye on the light cone, might consider the gamble worthwhile.

Comment author: JoshuaFox 28 October 2014 04:37:19PM 0 points [-]

Quite right, hard to tell.